RFID's day is coming

Some leading manufacturing companies are working together to develop and field test emerging automatic identification (Auto-ID) technologies and applications—most especially, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

What the use of RFID tags offers is a way to track manufactured goods

down to the unit level, through production and distribution, to get precise information about inventory positions and points-of-sale activity. Closing the information loop in this way could have a revolutionary impact on demand, production, and supply chain planning. It could also result in better information about a product's history throughout its life.

While the cost of the technology is spiraling downward, problems remain—not least the sheer amount of data that could be generated through its widespread use.

At the Auto-ID Center, an industry-funded research program based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.; and at the Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing in Cambridge, U.K., interest in RFID tags has led to foundation of a board of overseers, including founding sponsors Procter & Gamble and The Gillette Company—along with other end-user companies Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Pepsi, Unilever, and Sara Lee.

Auto-ID technologies suppliers such as Matrics, Intermec, and Savi Technology have, for similar reasons, formed a technology board offering guidance concerning emerging technologies and standards.

Together, the boards are developing electronic product codes (ePCs) and RFID tags. These technologies will allow capture of more accurate, specific, and timely data than is possible through use of UPC and bar codes—while reducing or eliminating human labor.

"RFID itself isn't a new technology. Many manufacturers investigated it years ago, and have been using it with much success," says Piyush Sodha, CEO of Matrics, a Columbia, Md.-based supplier of RFID solutions.

"On the other hand, many manufacturers—particularly those in the consumer-packaged goods industry—shied away from the technology due to concerns about reliability and cost."

Wireless radio communications is the means for storing data to—and retrieving it from—an RFID tag, composed of an integrated circuit with memory for data storage and a substrate backing material. The interrogator, an RF device often called a "reader," writes data back and forth. Because information on the chip can be changed, erased, or permanently locked, tag memory is a portable and active repository for information such as identification, serial numbers, and product history.

What you have, then, is an automated means of collecting and adding information on the fly—such as when work was done and what work was done. And because it doesn't require line of sight, RFID collects information about items in a container.

London-based Unilever uses RFID technology from Dallas-based Texas Instruments Radio Frequency Identification (TI-RFid ) Systems as the backbone of a smart pallet system that handles, moves, and tracks consumer products in warehouse facilities.

Use of RFID allows tracking pallets as they move through the warehouse and onto trucks. When a truck is full, the scale automatically compares the total weight with individual pallet weight, and alerts management to discrepancies. According to Unilever, the RFID system improves productivity by increasing the number of pallets handled daily and guaranteeing the validity of information about material movement.

Plant-floor uses

RFID has a place in production scenarios as well, particularly in the automotive industry, says Tony Sabetti, global business unit manager at TI-RFid. For example, an RFID tag attached to a seat or an engine can be used to gather and exchange work-in-process data. Product, manufacturing, and supplier information can be recorded to the tag in support of product warranty programs.

"That's the classic example of RFID in manufacturing," Sabetti says. "It enables manufacturers to track high-value assets to ensure they're built correctly. It's more suitable than bar codes for automotive and other manufacturing environments, where painting or welding are going on."

Work at the Auto-ID Center also focuses on developing and testing an electronic product code (ePC), a coding scheme that will identify an individual item's manufacturer, product category, and unique serial number. These 96-bit product codes are stored in memory chips—or so-called "smart tags." The ePC scheme can uniquely identify more than 268 million manufacturers, each with more than one million products, with enough numbers left over to tag all future individual consumer products.

A product markup language (PML) used to describe physical objects, and an object naming service (ONS) form the core of the application. Based in part on the existing domain name system (DNS) that routes information to appropriate Web sites, the ONS tells computer systems where to locate information about any object that carries an ePC code. Given that it will enable locating data for trillions of objects, the ONS will likely be many times larger than the DNS.

"This technology could deliver significant benefits, including authenticity verification, automating production, and distribution processes to reduce and balance inventory, improving the ability to produce to demand, as well as customer service," says Dick Mahany, a vice president with Intermec , Everett, Wash., a leading vendor in Auto-ID. "It significantly improves a company's ability to follow material from point of origin to selling point."

Hurdles for ePC

Unit-level tracking potentially offers compelling benefits, but there are obstacles to overcome, says Steve Banker, service director, supply chain management, ARC Advisory Group , Dedham, Mass. "The reality is that ePC is at least five years—possibly 10 years—away," he says.

With the price for tags at around 40 cents each and falling—and the price per reader perhaps dropping to $200 to $300 over the next 12 months—hardware cost is less of an issue. Infrastructure cost, however, is a different matter, Banker says.

The ability to track individual products, Banker says, "will generate an enormous amount of data and require giant data warehouses, which will be a substantial IT infrastructure cost. Nevertheless, RFID technology continues to gain ground among manufacturers as they recognize that it offers clear return-on-investment in manufacturing execution, by tracking components and work quality; warehouse management, by improving picking capabilities; and asset management, by accurately tracking shipping containers."

VENDORS MENTIONED IN THIS SECTION

• Adexa : www.adexa.com

• Agilisys : www.agilisys.biz

• BRAIN : www.brainna.com

• Cisco Systems : www.cisco.com

• Frontstep : www.frontstep.com

• Geac : www.geac.com

• GE Fanuc Automation : www.geindustrial.com

• Intermec : www.intermec.com

• Made2Manage Systems : www.made2manage.com

• MAPICS : www.mapics.com

• Matrics : www.matricsrfid.com

• Microsoft : www.microsoft.com

• Opto 22 : www.opto22.com

• PeopleSoft : www.peoplesoft.com

• Rockwell Automation : www.rockwellautomation.com

• SAP : www.sap.com

• Texas Instruments RFid : www.ti.com/tiris/default.htm